Mysore, Mysore, what an Eyesore. Mysore is not, as the Rough Guide describes it, an "enchanting and characterful city" (i am relying far too much on this book) It is another heavily polluted, frenetic, noisy, dirty city. Wandering around, dodging beggars, rickshaws belching exhaust, cow shit and over friendly teenage boys i can't help but feel that i am falling out of love with India. My rose tinted glasses are slipping off my sweaty nose. India is a country of contradictions: it is poor but it worships money, its people will shit in full broad public daylight, yet Indians consider themselves the cleanest people in the world, it is the country that brought us the Karma Sutra, yet a Victorian prudishness prevails, animals are sacred but they all look as if they're starving to death and most signifiantly and in the words of Mark Twain, 'all life seems to be sacred - except human life'. It feels like a country which human beings have not quite learnt to dominate.

A deeper magic from the dawn of time...

I left Shantivanan all of a week ago, hitching a lift with Christoria, who had been a nun with Mother Theresa for 20 years, and her husband Mike, and feeling throughout the drive as if there was a golden string stretching out, connecting me to holy ground.

After 10 hours on a cramped bus (sitting, literally, next to wankers) i arrived at Shantivanan which was by this time shrouded in deep darkness and was greeted by the saffron-clad night-watchman who spoke no english and took me to my little hut. Amazingly i was up the next morning at 6 for the first office of the day - a beautiful Indianised affair with incense, flowers, readings from the Upanishads, the Bible and Rabindranath Tagore, haunting bhajans (music), a sacred flame which we washed over our eyes and finally sandlewood paste, considered holy because it offers up its scent even as it is being axed, which we daubed on our foreheads. In the afternoons i would sit with Brother Martin as he attempted to explain some of the philosophies behind this curious Hindu/ Christian synthesis. It seems to boil down to this: All religions that are genuinely seeking God are climbing the same hill but using different paths. A true authentic search for God requires transcending religion - not becoming so comfortable that you start building permanent homes on the mountain of God. So far, so good. So very good in fact and similar to the sentiments expressed by the bloke who said he was giving up Christianity...so that he could follow Jesus. It was only when i asked Br Martin what he identified himself as that he looked uncertain and umm'd and ah'd and eventually said that he was not a Christian but a Theist using Christianity as a vehicle to God. Hmmm, not altogether kosher...
So, to follow that example of a wise old bird at the Nightshelter ("why go to the monkey when you can go straight to the organ grinder") i delved into a biography of Bede Griffiths where i found some things that did ring true:

'The deepest impression left by life in India was the sense of the sacred as
something that pervaded the whole order of nature. Every hill and tree and
river is holy and the simplest human acts of eating and drinking, still more of
birth and marriage, have all retained their sacred character. It is this that
gives such an indescribable beauty to Indian life, in spite of the poverty and
squalor'

Nowhere has this been more true than at Shantivanan where the darkness is so dark yet not fearful, and punctuated only by stars and fireflies, and the light is dappled and the air heady, the villagers going about their work, women in saris, men in simple dhotis, where we eat our meals sitting on the floor, using our hands, facing each other and in silence - the mindfulness of a liturgy in itself. In fact this sense of the sacred pervading the profane bears a striking resemblance to Celtic spirituality - another ancient, earthy elemental view of the world and Jah and Man. It also brings to mind the deeply celebratory preface to Allen Ginsberg's Howl which i will copy and paste (an abreviated version) for your edification and delight:

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The
nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy! Everything is holy!
everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an
angel! The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are
holy! The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are
holy the ecstasy is holy! .....Holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucinations holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the abyss! Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity!
faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! magnanimity! Holy the supernatural extra
brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!

It is this idea of non-duality, or Advaita, or Oneness that i think Bede Griffiths found when he went East - that 'no man is an island entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main' - we are closer to one another than we realise. This is the true, deep meaning of loving your neighbour and seeing Christ in others.

'All our personal experiences, joyful as well as painful have to be
realised as not belonging to ourselves but rather as belonging to another, as
being our share in that other life. We live out our life on this narrow personal
plane with all its trials and conflicts and pleasures but how difficult it is to
realise that all this life of our is a reflection in us of another, that we
don't belong to ourselves' (B.G)

So there was a lot that i didn't understand or agree with but i think i glimpsed something at Shantivanan that was wild ancient and dangerous - a deeper magic from the dawn of time - a millions worldsaway from the safety and reserve of civilisation with its civilised church ("So" said the journalist to Gandhi "what do you think of Western civilisation?" "i think it would be a very good idea!") It is an experience that will stay with me and colour my picture of India.
(Thankyou to David for giving me the B.G book in the first place!)

pictured: Fr. Bede's shoes and brolly

Just my luck - i come all the way to India, armed with my factor 40, and it rains! It is rainy season in the tiny village of Gomathimuthupuram, Tamil Nadu and the villagers find themselves welcoming their new resident alien...

What can i tell you? The village is small, Christian, Dalit and very poor. The hospitality i've received has been overwhelming (to the point of being just a teeny bit suffocating). The kids are amazing, soul-ful and very happy in spite (or because) of their poverty. The orphanage has 97 kids at the moment and they have so little - they sleep on the bare floor at night, don't get Christmas presents and most don't even have toothbrushes. The day i arrived i went for a little explore and was practically mobbed by a throng of school kids who were completely overcome to see this queer pale creature in their midst. It was unwise to attempt to 'hand out' the sweets i'd brought. The teaching is like wading through treacle. I had underestimated how little english people would have. My Tamil remains pretty basic. The most useful phrase i've picked up translates as 'shut up your mouth' and when used on the kids it has a most satisfactory effect.
In spite of the generous hospitality (i cannot express how kind people are, and how they would give me everything of what little they own) i've been feeling a bit isolated and lonesome (a sort of existential as well as ordinary lonliness). I've begun to see that my taking myself off to India was like a self imposed spiritual exile, you know the kind of thing: strip everything away - family, friends, money, job, church, place, routine etc - and see what you're left with. So far no sign of 'enlightenment', just crabbiness. So i've decided to abandon ship and will be heading for Shantivanan, the ashram of Bebedictine monk Bede Griffiths. Bede Griffiths came to India in search of what he felt was the missing 'eastern' part of his spirituality and was very interested in how different faiths communicated. Now inter-faith dialogue doesn't really do it for me. In fact i would echo a very socially active, forward thinking nun i know: "inter-faith dialogue? BORING!" If the liturgy is all about cobbling together lots of world faiths in one shiny happy package i will turn my nose up, shake the dust from my feet and leave. But i am open minded, particularly at the prospect of there being lots of monks...
So yes i am disappointed to be leaving five months earlier than planned, but i may well return for Christmas or Easter.

More to come.